Love

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Red the Mare had another rest day today, after her shots. (Also, my beaten up old car was in the garage.) I missed her so badly that as soon as the very kind gentleman gave me back my beautifully fixed motor, I drove like the wind to see her. She was loafing about in the sun, happy as an entire colony of clams.

I stood with her for a bit, rubbed her ears, had a bit of a chat.

I thought, in my head:

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Then I rubbed her ears some more. She very kindly let me. I fed her a bit of apple, which she likes very much. I felt profoundly lucky. My God, the luck.

Then I went home and there was the Pigeon, waiting for me, greeting me with her familiar bouncing up and down. She knows she is not allowed to jump, but she cannot contain her delight, so she bounces on the spot like Tigger.

I rubbed her ears, had a bit of a chat. Then I gave her some biscuits.

I thought, in my head:

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE.

So, you see, I have no coherent thoughts for you today. Every atom in my body is dancing with the horse and dog love.

And the sun is dazzling and the sky is blue and nothing else matters, just at this very moment.

Pictures of the day:

The wild part of the garden, with everything just coming into its singing green:

That little apple tree was only planted last year; see how merrily it blossoms:

Looking south over the hills:

Despite the signs of spring, the limes are still quite bare:

But these little fellows (chestnuts, I think) are putting on their fine fig:

And the willow is out:

Two days ago, there was no blossom on the cherry trees. It has appeared, suddenly, quite without warning:

Sun on the wall:

I don't know if some strange thing is happening in my brain, but I really think she is getting more beautiful with each passing day:

You can see that her paddock has rotten grazing. Never fear. She is soon to be moved to a field so gloriously grassy that she shall be in horse heaven.

And talking of beauty:

The Pidge was looking so splendid today that I put a picture of her up on my Facebook page. She got six Likes. I felt stupidly, giddily proud.

The arrival of the horse has shifted the creature love up into a whole other gear. There is a very, very real danger that I risk becoming a perfect animal bore, never again able to discuss anything else. I must guard against this. But oh, oh, oh, the beauty. Such loveliness, on which to rest my eyes.

The hill, at its most blue:

One of the things we wrote in Backwards was that there are so many different kinds of love. We were a bit grumpy about romantic love getting all the press.

I remember listing the kinds of love. I think there was family love, friend love, creature love, place love. I'm not sure if I mentioned thing love, but there is that too – I have a lot of love for inanimate objects like my bashed old copy of The Wasteland, dog-eared from repeated reading, or my Lartigue photograph. I love The Great Gatsby and Mrs Dalloway. I love trees.

(If the Younger Brother is reading this, all the way in the Far East, he will be shrieking at my old inner hippy coming out in such a shameless manner.)

This week, for all that there was a difficult day, and I am battling a bit with my work, I got huge doses of family love, place love (Scotland never looked so glorious as in this riotous spring sunshine), and, of course, the horse-and-dog love.

I must not bang on, like a one-trick pony, but I sometimes think these things are oddly important to record. It's like Sebastian Flyte's notion in Brideshead: the pot of gold that you may go back and dig up when you are old and crabbed, so you may remember the place where you were happy. I do not take any of this for granted; I mark it well.

I hope that wherever you are, Dear Readers, that you too had some Friday love, in any of its multifarious forms.